


Five Ways to Keep From Drowning

by balthesar



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-02
Updated: 2006-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-23 08:32:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/248298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balthesar/pseuds/balthesar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For <a href="http://andrealyn.livejournal.com/profile">andrealyn</a>, for the <a href="http://sarkastic.livejournal.com/279791.html">James Norrington Ficathon</a>.  She asked for: Norrington drunk,  Sparrow/Norrington,  Groves or Gillette finding Norrington in Tortuga.  Additionally, she asked for Norrington <i>not</i> being emo, which I couldn't wholly avoid.  Blasted muse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Ways to Keep From Drowning

  1. "Commodore!"

James Norrington turned at the shouted hail. Tortuga was a bustling port, overrun with pirates, thieves, buccaneers and whores; honest merchants and the Royal Navy were underrepresented. The voice sounded familiar, but that's the way blurry memory works -- half-remembered voices spill out of the half-remembered faces of strangers. Perhaps the hail was in jest -- James had but a single frock, the tattered navy and gold of his officer's uniform. Perhaps they'd guessed well.

Through the teeming streets, a raised arm of salute and a powdered white wig wove towards James. "Commodore!" Gillette called again. His broad face was unmistakable, his expression surprised, pleased and concerned.

"Not anymore," James replied flatly.

Pretending not to hear him, his erstwhile lieutenant continued. "Sir, what are you doing here?"

Norrington lifted the half-empty bottle of screech. "The same thing as everyone else."

  2. James Norrington had a sardonic streak. 'The Faithful Bride' was blackly humourous enough that it won out over the other taverns on the main road from the Tortuga docks to the bawdyhouses. Atmosphere was less important; it was the exchange of rum for coin that James cared about.

The Bride was roaring. A raucous hornpipe band was playing in the corner, the din of laughter and fights nearly drowning it out. A single word to the bartender -- "rum" -- and a few coins saw James satisfied. He claimed a little filthy table against one wall and began to drink.

"Commodore!" a familiar voice broke above the noise. A pair of dice tumbled across James' table, bone carved into obscene cubic figures. "Care for a game?" Jack Sparrow straddled the stool opposite the former commodore.

"No," James replied. He took a swig off the bottle he'd bought, looking at the pirate with disdain. "In fact, I could die a happy man if I never saw you again."

  3. Sparrow's mouth was hot and wet. Obviously he'd done this before, perhaps dozens of times; James tried not to speculate about those past circumstances. He shivered. The room was a little cold and James was lying on top of the sheets. Sparrow had managed to tug down James' breeches to mid-thigh and was currently running his deliciously-warm tongue along the underside of James' cock. With a choked moan, James thrust his hips up towards the damned pirate's mouth.

"Commodore," Sparrow chided him with a smirk. "Don't be rude." Circling the sensitive head with the tip of his tongue, Sparrow's lips sunk down the former officer's shaft.

The room spun as Sparrow slid a slick finger between James' legs and pressed into him.

  4. James woke early; Sparrow's bare back was turned to him, rising and falling with steady breaths. The dawn was grey through low-hanging clouds, and still dim; even so, the light cut into James' eyes with painful lucidity. Silently he dressed, pulling on his barely-navy coat and tugging at his cuffs of dirty lace. He took his boots in hand -- no sense in waking the pirate if he could avoid it -- and the nearly-empty bottle of rum he'd left on the floor by the bed. Creeping out the door, he didn't notice a pair of kohled eyes upon him.

The streets were deserted now, only the baker opening his shop with clanking keys and the splash of chamberpots being emptied into the street a block away. Towards the distant end of the pier, fishmongers were already shouting.

James walked down to the docks, staring out towards the tall ships anchored at the edge of the harbour. Few were flying colours; none were flying the ensign.

For a moment, James felt terribly far from home, but then he remembered himself and walked on and bought a bottle of cheap wine and a loaf of bread and sat in a doorway and ate.

  5. "Sir, what are you doing here?"

Norrington lifted the half-empty bottle of screech. "The same thing as everyone else." He smiled thinly and took a gulp. "I could ask the same of you."

Gillette didn't move, didn't shrug, didn't blink. "I'm here because of you."

"Riddles ill become you," James replied bluntly. "Get to the point, man."

"Drunkenness ill becomes you, sir," Gillette returns. "You're not half the man I used to know." James growled under his breath at Gillette's frank observations and turned to leave the way he came. "At your promotion, sir -- when you became Commodore -- I imagine you would have been overcome with shame, to think of falling so far."

"That is _enough_ , Lieutenant," James snapped, turning.

"Crossing the Atlantic at breakneck pace, the bloody battles, the hurricane off Gibraltar --" Gillette shook his head. "I did it, sir, because I trusted you. Even when it seemed like obsession and madness. I believed in the man you were. And now look at you." Norrington's former subordinate examined him with a critical eye.

James lips were pressed into an angry line. "You have no right to speak thusly." His fingers rubbed the bottle guiltily.

"You've no right to drown that good man and become this one," Gillette replied with cool, detached fury. "I need to know that the man I died for didn't die off Tripoli with the rest of us."

James smashed the bottle on the paving stones. Rum splashed up and splattered his boots. "What would you have me do?" he growled.

"Acquit yourself." Gillette's eyebrows raised slightly as he leaned in. "Make my death meaningful."

James breathed in and out, his mind racing. "I can." He nodded. "I will."

  




End file.
